My dad recently brought me a large basket of Seckel pears from my brother's tree. These pears are small, but full of delicious flavor, and I had to figure out what I would do with them. I had a box of puff pastry in the freezer, browsed a few recipes on the web, and came up with this...
...which was perfectly delicious with a cup of tea.Pear & Cream Cheese Tart with Puff Pastry
1 pound puff pastry
Pears ~ enough sliced to cover the top of a 12 x 17 inch jelly roll pan (sorry, I didn't measure this out)
1 pkg. (8 oz) cream cheese, softened
1/3 cup sugar
1 egg
1/2 tsp vanilla
some cinnamon sugar
sliced almonds
Preheat oven to 400 degrees. On a lightly floured surface, roll out the puff pastry to form a 12.5 x 17.5 inch rectangle. Cut off 1/2 inch strips from each of the four sides and, moistening with a little water, place them on top of each corresponding edge of your large puff pastry rectangle ~ these form a raised border around the sides. Transfer pastry to baking sheet and chill for 1 hour.
Beat cream cheese and sugar with electric mixer on medium speed til blended. Add egg and vanilla, mix well. Spread evenly over puff pastry that has been chilled. Arrange pear slices nicely over the cream cheese layer; sprinkle with cinnamon sugar, and some almonds if desired.
Place in oven and bake for 35 to 40 minutes, rotating baking sheet in oven about halfway through.
I didn't have any almonds, but thought they would also be nice on this. If your oven is on the hot side like mine, you might want to lower the temperature to 375 degrees.
This didn't last long at our house!